I admit it. I have caught the fever—spring fever that is. I sit at my desk rolling around story ideas that will take my feet to the sand. Anything I can do to make the workday happen on the shoreline is exactly what the doctor has ordered. Last week, I had the opportunity to walk out to the Kindred Spirit mailbox on Bird Island to write a story for an upcoming “Island Living” special section of the Beacon.

I was on one of my many trips to the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office when it came up—the subject I had so hoped to avoid—Jenelle, otherwise known as Brunswick County’s resident “Teen Mom.”

A “star” on MTV’s “reality” show “Teen Mom 2,” Jenelle Evans is a 19-year-old Oak Island resident whose run-ins with the law have been well documented on the show, in the tabloids and in the court docket in Brunswick County District Court.

No, I don’t have a degree in veterinary science. I haven’t published any books, and I haven’t appeared on any syndicated television shows, national news programs or been in newspapers picked up by half the country.

I certainly haven’t cared for and treated countless numbers of dogs, cats, lizards, snakes, hamsters and other critters.

Everything I know about caring for pets, well, at least one of them, I learned on my lunch break last week.

Just when you think everything is hunky-dory in the Seafood Capital is usually when a new issue crops up to keep Calabash-ians (and reporters) on their toes.

Some people there think it’s not enough to have a cute neon restaurant arrow or big gift-shop sign memorializing the town once called Pea Landing.

Leaders, heavy on the merchant side, are feeling the town could do better—has done better—back in the golden days when it had a few big, honkin’ “Calabash Seafood” signs and restaurants lining Beach Drive.

Most weeks I consider my job more fun than work. But there are weeks I question my career choice.

No one wants to write the story of a town grieving for the loss of a much loved public figure, or of a fire that destroyed two small businesses and severely injured a man, or about a bicyclist run over by three cars on U.S. 17, or about a family of four dying in a car wreck. But writing these types of stories comes with the job. Unfortunately, last week they were all in the paper—it was a sad news week.